


An Ocean in His Veins

by Elsin



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Gen, Graphic Description of Self-Harm, PTSD, Self-Harm, currently a one-shot, suicidal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 18:24:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1438144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsin/pseuds/Elsin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after The House of Hades, Gaea has been defeated but Percy is the only one of the seven who survived, and he can't really cope with it, so he turns to self-harm.<br/>May act as a trigger; there are some fairly graphic self-harm descriptions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Ocean in His Veins

_The earth shook with more than an earthquake’s tremors. All around him, Percy could see nothing but destruction. His friends lay dead around him. Only Nico, who had come back at the last minute, was left._

_“Go!” he shouted to Nico. “Get out of here, shadow-travel away. One of us might as well survive!” He didn’t mean to survive this quest. He meant to take down Gaea, but after that- they were all dead. All the others were dead and Percy was pretty sure that he was dead inside too- or would be once this was over and the adrenaline was gone._

_“No! I’m not leaving you!” Percy met Nico’s eyes and saw wild, raw pain trapped there. “You’re going to live. You_ have _to live.”_

_There was no more speech as the two fought, back to back, against all the terrors that the Earth could conjure up. They were winning. Somehow they were winning. Then Percy felt Nico move from his back. He couldn’t turn to see what Nico was doing or where he was going._

_The explosion shook him down to his very bones as it threw him into the air and brought him crashing down again. Rubble landed on him, pinning his legs and crushing his ribcage. He struggled to breathe and knew it was pointless to try. They had lost. He took a last, shuddering breath-_

Percy sat bolt upright in his bed, gulping in deep breaths of sweet, clean air. The heavy winter blankets fell away from his chest. It had been their weight that had snuck into his dreams and suffocated him.

Slowly, carefully, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and placed his feet on the floor. He crossed to the window and leaned his forehead against the freezing glass. His t-shirt was stuck to his body with sweat and his hair was damp with it. Pressing his palms against the glass, he thought about the dream. It hadn’t happened that way. Not exactly, at least. There had been an explosion, yes, and his legs had been pinned- one had been shattered, in fact, and he still couldn’t walk quite right on it- but nothing had landed on his chest. Instead he’d watched as Nico di Angelo- as Nico- as-

He knew where this train of thought led. He knew exactly where it led, because it always came back to this, didn’t it? In the end, it didn’t matter that he had been the “great hero,” whatever the hell that meant, or that he’d been anything at all. It hadn’t made a difference in the end. Percy had been unable to fight, unable to do anything but watch as his friend delivered the final stroke to Gaea and took himself out with her.

They were all dead. All of them. Every single one of them, dead.

Percy closed his eyes, as if that would lessen the pain. Instead he saw their faces etched onto the inside of his eyelids.

He choked back a sob.

Gods, oh gods. Nico. What wouldn’t he give for a chance to redo it?

That was the other name he’d been avoiding, the name that hurt the most. _Annabeth._ Why, gods, why? Why her? Why couldn’t it have been him, sprawling dead across the earth with blank, staring eyes?

Percy could feel the pressure building up inside of him. It needed a release, soon, and he couldn’t cry. He hadn’t cried since-

He hadn’t cried since they’d died.

***

The short walk down the hallway to the bathroom seemed to take an eternity to him. More than once, he had to stop and steady himself on the wall. His head reeled, and it was a relief to finally step into the small, cold bathroom with the white-tiled floor.

Percy uncurled his fingers from the small silver blade, glittering in his palm. His hands trembled and his breath came short and fast. The blade slipped out of his hand, momentarily forgotten, as tremors overtook his body. _All my fault._ He rocked backwards, and banged his head into the wall. _I should be dead._ He rocked forwards and hit the hard, ceramic tiles. _But I can’t do that to Mom. I can’t do that to Paul._

The silver blade found its way back into his hand. Percy stretched his arm out in front of him and turned it over, revealing the mass of old scars and healing cuts crisscrossing it. He frowned at it. He was running out of room. No matter, that. He put the blade into his left hand, and turned over his right arm. The skin was clean and unblemished, all the way from his shoulder to his wrist.

 _You killed Hazel, you let her die._ Cut. His skin split under the small silver blade.

 _And Frank, don’t forget him. If you’d been a moment faster he’d have lived._ Cut. Blood was beginning to well up out of his wounds.

 _Piper. Jason. Leo._ Cut. Cut. Cut. Blood ran down his arm onto his hand.

 _You could have saved Nico if you just hadn’t got caught by that damn explosion._ Cut. Blood dripped onto the bathroom tiles, crimson against white.

 _Oh gods. Annabeth. You should have seen that coming. You should have saved her. You could have done it, too. A half-second faster and she would be here._ Cut, cut, cut, cut. The blood oozing from his arm fell to the floor. The tiles looked like snow beneath it.

Percy sat against the wall and watched his arm bleed.

**Author's Note:**

> So I started this intending it to be quite long but it's kind of stuck as a one-shot right now. I might come back to it later; don't count on it.  
> EDIT: I almost certainly won't come back to this. I wrote it when I was in a really dark place, and to continue it I might have to go back there, which is not something that I'm willing to do.


End file.
